Modi Won the Indian Election on Twitter, Too
Crunching the numbers on social media after the BJP's landslide victory Twitters India head Rishi Jaitly has called it the Twitter election . Indeed, according to the social media companys own data, 56 million tweets were sent about Indias elections between January 1 and May 12, when the polls closed, with an estimated total reach (including tweets, retweets, and quotes) of 267 billion. The heat map below shows how India (and the world) tweeted since the beginning of the yeareach color refers to the mention of one of the three major candidates: Arvind Kejriwal (green), Rahul Gandhi (blue), and the runaway winner of the race , Narendra Modi (orange). While there was a certain balance between the occurrence of the three candidates in the earlier stages of the campaign, there is a net increment of tweets mentioning Narendra Modi, reflected in the progressively more orange coloring of the heat spots. The direct comparison between volumes of tweets mentioning the different parties shows a similar movement: from a somewhat even distributionparticularly in the mid phases of the campaign between January 28 and March 3 , before Kejriwal started his road show in Gujarat and his live Facebook talk but the BJP took over in the final stages of the campaign. Here's a closer look at the election-related tweets since April 7 , the day after Modis rally in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh: Something more interesting happens when looking specifically for the tweets related to the leader, as opposite to the party. While the overall volume of tweets mentioning Modi is comparable to those mentioning his main opponent, Rahul Gandhi, the Congress candidates peaks are notable particularly early in the campaign the main one being on January 27, when Rahul Gandhi was mentioned 99,569 times. Notably, however, Rahul Gandhi doesn't seem able to capitalize on the interest, arguably given his direct absence from Twitter : the leader of the Congress does not have a handle, unlike his adversaries @NarendraModi and @ArvindKejriwal . Modis predominance appears more clearly by comparing the occurrence of his name in election-related tweets versus other names and relevant search terms. This is especially evident looking at the percentage of overall tweets about the electionModi-related tweets are 20 percent of the total. Further elements to support the predominance of the Modi discourse on Twitter can be seen in the large following of the BJP candidates handle: nearly 4 million accounts follow Modi, versus 1.8 million for Kejriwal as of May 12. Modi is also the author of one of the most retweeted tweets this election, right behind cricket superstar Sachin Tendulkar: I have voted, have you? A wonderful start to my birthday, as a responsible citizen of our great nation. pic.twitter.com/RXAtisMwqq The little masters tweet was retweeted 4,891 times, while the infamous selfie with Modi was retweeted 3,751 times. Selfie is in! Share yours using #SelfieWithModi & see what happens https://t.co/2s2BZ7GvuC pic.twitter.com/oDrCZztzo0 As a comparison, the most retweeted post by Arvind Kejriwal was shared 2,004 times. These people r scared of me, not becoz I am Arvind Kejriwal, but becoz I am one of u. They r scared of u, not me..... All the remaining tweets among the 10 most-retweeted mention the BJP or Modi (or are by Modi himself), with the exception of the third most-retweeted, about the AAP: I m voting for AAP,becoz only clean candidates can provide clean governance. Are you going to #VoteForACleanCandidate pic.twitter.com/yDcHmluXSn This is not to say, however, that Modi won the Internet, or Twitter. In absolute numbers he is certainly the predominant presence, but the performance of the AAP and Kejriwal is nevertheless outstanding: from 310,392 followers on January 1 to 678,934 on May 12, the @AamAadmiParty grew 119 percent, and @ArvindKejriwal grew 79 percent, going from 310,392 followers on January 1 to 678,934 on May 12. Narendra Modis account, by comparison, only grew 28 percent in the same period of time. The party that grew the most on Twitter, however, is the Indian National Congress: Its Twitter handle, @INCIndia , went from 37,357 followers on January 1 to 177,637 on May 12, with an increase of 376 percent. This data, while somewhat impressive, shows a party thats far behind its opponents when it comes to social media, and possibly only capitalized by the general interest generated by the election. None of the 10 most-retweeted tweets are INC-related.